Washington, DC (February 13, 2019) - Today, Jake Braun, co-founder of the Voting Village at DEF CON -- the world’s largest and longest running hacker conference -- testified before the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee about the cybersecurity threats facing our nation’s elections infrastructure. Citing DEF CON’s own groundbreaking research that it has conducted over the last two years in the aftermath of the Russian hacking during the 2016 elections, Braun’s testimony represented one of the first times DEF CON was invited to play a prominent role in informing and educating Washington lawmakers on issues of national security.

The testimony also represented a first foray into Washington for the University of Chicago’s Cyber Policy Initiative (CPI), launched last year at DEF CON 26 and currently led by Braun, who serves as its Executive Director. Housed within the Harris School at the University of Chicago, CPI serves as a forum through which hackers, technologists, academics, and the cyber research community can engage policy makers at all levels of government to strengthen our voting systems and our democracy.

“It’s an honor to be here on the Hill wearing both hats today,” said Braun. “Over the last two years, DEF CON has done cutting-edge research to expose and elevate the vulnerabilities in our voting systems -- and now CPI is playing a critical translator role, taking findings out of the ‘hacker’ world and explaining threats and solutions to lawmakers in policy terms, helping to tackle what’s become one of the biggest national security concerns of our time.”

In addition to highlighting the link between national security and protection of our nation’s election infrastructure, Braun highlighted specific vulnerabilities found by the DEF CON Voting Village demonstration, which represented the first public, third-party security assessment of voting machines.

Braun also added, “The attacks on our election infrastructure are not solely an election administration nuisance but rather a national security threat,” said Braun. “This is about our national security apparatus marshalling its resources to do what our nation expects it to do, which is protect our country from existential threats to the United States.”

The hearing, called by Representative Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), sought to kick-off debate on H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2019. Braun was joined by notable election leaders including California Secretary of State Alex Padilla; former Cook County, Illinois, Director of Elections Noah Praetz; Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill; Christopher C. Krebs, Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security; and Thomas Hicks, Chairman, U.S. Election Assistance Commission.